Sales Prospecting and Business Development

Workshop Description

"There are two kinds of sales professionals – those who hate to prospect, and those who lie and say they like it.” Now more than ever, acquiring new prospects and generating new business is critical for sales and business professionals. Yet, companies frequently make the same common mistakes when they prospect for new business. They don’t provide their people with the skills to succeed, focus on the wrong accounts, and spend time on low payoff activities such as cold calling. The Sales Prospecting and Business Development workshop addresses these common mistakes.

The Sales Prospecting and Business Development workshop content, duration and delivery options can be customized for your company and primary audience. STAR provides a full line of customized sales and sales management workshops, offering instructor-led training, online training, and sales coaching.

Who Should Attend?

Experienced sales professionals will benefit by upgrading their business development skills. Newer sales professionals will learn prospecting skills needed for a solid foundation for success. The Sales Prospecting workshop also helps entrepreneurs and other professionals who have to develop business relationships in order to grow their business and sell their company’s products or services, but don’t consider themselves as fulltime sales people (for example, business owners, consultants, financial service professionals, technical representatives and accountants).

Workshop Topics and Objectives

Identifying the Best Sales Opportunities — Learn a process to identify the best sales opportunities. Understand the importance of selecting strategic prospects rather than going after "easy wins” that don’t fit your business objectives.

Generating Leads — Methods to generate new leads that don’t rely on cold calling. We will highlight creative and effective methods to generate new leads, such as how to ask for and get referrals, and how to use the internet.

Questioning and Qualifying — Questioning skills to help you probe and qualify prospects and identify the best sales opportunities, using a sophisticated technique known as IDEAL Questioning™

Planning for Initial Sales Meetings — Guidelines for what to say and do during the first conversation or meeting. Each person will learn how to prepare and tailor elevator speeches for different sales situations.

Gaining Access to Decision-makers — Tips and techniques for identifying, meeting, and presenting to high level decision-makers

Responding to Objections from New Customers — Creative and effective responses to the most common objections that new customers tend to express, such as "I’m satisfied with my current provider” and "Let me think about it.”

Online Training Option: The Essential Selling Skills online series, which includes nearly 6 hours of online sales training, focuses on the skills needed to sell effectively in today's business environment and provides practical tools to help you become a more consultative and value oriented sales professional.